Apple breaks 10% market share in US, Lenovo climbs globally

Apple continues to ride high, becoming the number three PC vendor in the US …

Apple continues on its steady march to the top of the technology heap, according to the latest PC market share reports from Gartner and IDC. Both firms have released preliminary sales estimates for the third quarter showing impressive year-over-year growth for Apple just as the company's stock posted record highs at just over $300. The overall PC market is also up slightly both domestically (about 3 percent) and globally (about 9 percent), with Lenovo and ASUS in particular starting to gain on rivals Dell, Acer, and HP.

In the US, market leader HP mostly held steady year-over-year, commanding a quarter of the PC market here. Dell continues its steady decline, dropping a few points down to 23.4 percent. Somewhat surprisingly, low-cost netbook and nettop maker Acer dropped a couple points as well. More or less as Intel stated during its quarterly earnings report, Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa contributed Acer's and Dell's drops to a softening consumer market.

"The third quarter historically is a strong consumer quarter, led by back-to-school sales," Kitagawa said in a statement. "Consumer mobile PC demand, driven by low-priced notebooks, including mini-notebooks, slowed after very strong growth the past two years."

That dip from Acer allowed Apple—posting a nearly 20 percent unit sales growth—to capture 10.5 percent of the US market and to slide right into third place in the US. The company has been doing especially well with its notebooks for the last few years, but also had a couple updates to its iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Pro desktops recently. The third quarter is typically Apple's best, and you can see the cyclical trend over the last couple of years. Some analysts predict that Apple will report a record 4 million Mac sales in total in its upcoming quarterly report next Monday.

Apple is also riding high from the introduction of the iPad earlier this year, which many analysts attribute to breathing new life into the struggling tablet market. Market research firm DisplaySearch noted that counting sales of iPads, along with notebooks and notebooks, would place Apple as the number four portable computer vendor globally.

The iPad's influence on the overall consumer PC market, especially in the US, should not be discounted, according to Kitagawa. "Media tablet hype around devices such as the iPad has also affected consumer notebook growth by delaying some PC purchases. Media tablets don't replace primary PCs, but they affect PC purchases in many ways," she said. "At this stage, hype around media tablets has led consumers and the channels to take a 'wait and see' approach to buying a new device."

Looking at historical data for US PC market share, both Dell and HP have leveled out over the last few quarters despite being down year-over-year. However, both Apple and Toshiba have steadily increased while Acer has taken a dive in recent quarters. With all the focus on tablets, this trend could continue if consumers are lured towards the iPad or any number of promised Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry tablets.

Looking at the global market, positions haven't changed in the last few quarters. However, the top three vendors—HP, Acer, and Dell—showed some negative market share growth year-over-year. (To be fair, Dell's was a rounding error—flat is better than what the company has been doing recently.) Meanwhile, the next three vendors—Lenovo, ASUS, and Toshiba—posted significantly better than average gains for the quarter. In particular, Lenovo is closing in on Dell, and sitting just two percentage points away from grabbing the number three spot globally.

The overall positive growth for the PC market is a good thing, but it will be important to watch the trends as consumers increasingly move to more mobile and handheld computing using tablets and smartphones.

Note: The data used for this report comes from preliminary figures supplied by both Gartner and IDC. Figures for the third quarter US and worldwide PC sales were averaged from both data sets. Historical trend data is compiled from Gartner.

What do these statistics mean? Market share of what? Number of units? Value? Profit? What?What happened in the PC market during that time? Why is the article specifically focused on Apple again?

Take a closer look at the charts. This is Gartner data on unit growth.

And the mention of Apple is probably because it's significant for a vendor that's traditionally be viewed as a niche PC provider to have crossed over the magically 10% mark. Both the article and the headline for it make mention of Lenovo's global growth as well.

Gartner's numbers look a lot different if you add in the iPad as a "PC" type, which seems reasonable (at least Steve Balmer thinks so) when you consider that a netbook is also counted in the PC totals...

"Apple continues on its steady march to the top of the technology heap"

Yeah, with 1.5% increase to 10.5% of the US market, right? Wouldn't call that top of the heap.You didn't say that about Lenovo, though, and they gained 1.8% in the WORLD market.

Maybe you missed the part where, had the iPad been taken into account, Apple would be #4 ahead of Lenovo?

I don't understand why iPad would be included, it doesn't run a major OS (if you say iOS, then we must include the iPhone and Touches as well). Also the iPad is ancillary device, since you must have a PC to fully utilitze it. Notebooks nor netbooks are encumbered by such restrictions and can be considered portable PCs.

Gartner's numbers look a lot different if you add in the iPad as a "PC" type, which seems reasonable (at least Steve Balmer thinks so) when you consider that a netbook is also counted in the PC totals...

It is also extremely reasonable to NOT include the iPad as a PC Type, since it, you know, doesn't actually function as a PC.

This is coming from someone who owns and loves the iPad. IMO Gartner has this right, this isn't some kind of conspiracy to diminish Apple's accomplishments.

I think the focus is on Apple because the iPad is a disruptive force in the computer space in same way that the iPhone was a disruptive force in smartphone space.

As prices mature I would expect the iPad to be displaced by a lower cost device. The interesting question will be if Microsoft can hold on at the low end or if they will be pushed out by a 3rd party (Google, RIM, HP would love to use their OS in this space).

Edit: There may also be an Apple focus as this is posted in the Apple section of Arstechnica

"Apple continues on its steady march to the top of the technology heap"

Really? Come on. They're not close to the top, and at the current rate, their "march" will take years before they're anywhere near it.

Not if the iPad starts replacing PCs.

Not today, but an OS update that gives it printing and hosting capabilities (not that far off for printing, for example) as well as OTA updates (already achieved in competitor Android), would make it quite formidable, especially if they drop the price.

"Apple continues on its steady march to the top of the technology heap"

Really? Come on. They're not close to the top, and at the current rate, their "march" will take years before they're anywhere near it.

They're now the largest tech company in the world by market cap, and the second largest company in the world, period (again, by market cap). I think that's what the article was referring to, given the subsequent mention of their stock price (they just hit $300 a share for the first time, yesterday). Notice, it didn't say "Apple continues on its steady march to the top of the PC vendor's heap".

"Apple continues on its steady march to the top of the technology heap"

Yeah, with 1.5% increase to 10.5% of the US market, right? Wouldn't call that top of the heap.You didn't say that about Lenovo, though, and they gained 1.8% in the WORLD market.

Yeah, it's not like the article said stuffl like "Lenovo climbs globally" or "In particular, Lenovo is closing in on Dell, and sitting just two percentage points away from grabbing the number three spot globally."

Gartner's numbers look a lot different if you add in the iPad as a "PC" type, which seems reasonable (at least Steve Balmer thinks so) when you consider that a netbook is also counted in the PC totals...

"Apple continues on its steady march to the top of the technology heap"

Really? Come on. They're not close to the top, and at the current rate, their "march" will take years before they're anywhere near it.

Not if the iPad starts replacing PCs.

Not today, but an OS update that gives it printing and hosting capabilities (not that far off for printing, for example) as well as OTA updates (already achieved in competitor Android), would make it quite formidable, especially if they drop the price.

You post is a paradox. You crow about the iPad replacing real computers and then you mention that the tightly controlled appliance that is usually tethered to a real computer might finally soon get the ability to print.

There was probably nothing keeping the Apple I or the Atari 400 from printing.

Maybe you missed the part where, had the iPad been taken into account, Apple would be #4 ahead of Lenovo?

Only in the narrow category of "portable computer vendor"...

Quote:

Market research firm DisplaySearch noted that counting sales of iPads, along with notebooks and notebooks, would place Apple as the number four portable computer vendor globally.

I also have to wonder why Ars published Apple's market share percentage in the U.S., but declined to divulge Apple's world market share percentage (including the US) for the same period? I know that "10.5%" sounds a whole lot better than "3.6%", if, that is, you are someone who cares which way Apple's market share is going, but completely omitting mention of Apple's actual 3.6% share of the whole market seems a bit unprofessional.

Maybe you missed the part where, had the iPad been taken into account, Apple would be #4 ahead of Lenovo?

Only in the narrow category of "portable computer vendor"...

Quote:

Market research firm DisplaySearch noted that counting sales of iPads, along with notebooks and notebooks, would place Apple as the number four portable computer vendor globally.

I also have to wonder why Ars published Apple's market share percentage in the U.S., but declined to divulge Apple's world market share percentage (including the US) for the same period? I know that "10.5%" sounds a whole lot better than "3.6%", if, that is, you are someone who cares which way Apple's market share is going, but completely omitting mention of Apple's actual 3.6% share of the whole market seems a bit unprofessional.

Didn't you get the memo that portable computer sales are significantly larger than desktop computer sales? I do concede your point, the issue is a matter of time; when iPad sales ramps up as capabilities grow and prices drop, and desktop sales continue to fall, Apple is going to be #4.

I hate it when everytime a company gets popular their quality goes to the crapper.

I find these numbers exciting from a perspective of my past experience with loving mac hardware, but now it just feels so undeserving. If anything Apple needs a drop in sales to regroup and focus more strongly on quality.

Company wide I had pretty good success with Apple hardware in the past (namely the Mac Mini), but all our recent macs (iMac's) died from either Hard drive failures (easily fixed) or logic board issues.

"Apple continues on its steady march to the top of the technology heap"

Really? Come on. They're not close to the top, and at the current rate, their "march" will take years before they're anywhere near it.

Not if the iPad starts replacing PCs.

Not today, but an OS update that gives it printing and hosting capabilities (not that far off for printing, for example) as well as OTA updates (already achieved in competitor Android), would make it quite formidable, especially if they drop the price.

You post is a paradox. You crow about the iPad replacing real computers and then you mention that the tightly controlled appliance that is usually tethered to a real computer might finally soon get the ability to print.

There was probably nothing keeping the Apple I or the Atari 400 from printing.

At what point does a device that does most of what a PC does become a PC? Is it when it does 50% of a standard PC? 75%? 90%?

You can already edit documents, surf the internet, not only listen to but make music, read ebooks, draw, play games, connect to remote computers, control other computers/electronic devices. You only need to connect it to another computer once, thereafter it's entirely independent if you want it to be.

So it's not a real computer because it doesn't print out of the box (third party apps allow printing)? What happens when it does print? "Oh, it's not a real computer because you can't ... <fill in your own comment here>"

When it first appeared, the iPad was dismissed as a media consumption device only, but as people showed you could actually create on it, the goal posts moved. And they'll continue to move, I'm sure.

Didn't you get the memo that portable computer sales are significantly larger than desktop computer sales? I do concede your point, the issue is a matter of time; when iPad sales ramps up as capabilities grow and prices drop, and desktop sales continue to fall, Apple is going to be #4.

Right. Well, how do you reconcile all of that glowing pomp with a 3.6% world market share?...

Imo this is about as high as Apple's numbers in the US can go (their worldwide sales percentage about about half US sales). I recall Apple getting to about 12% (US sales market share) around 1990 at their peak. So, there is a little more room for them to grow imo. http://www.calcompcare.com/Resources/Ap ... 0Share.pdf

As for the iPad, it's not quite a PC. But Apple needs to take that step to get it there (add printing/no need for tethering to a PC, etc.) and then iPad numbers can be added to the PC mix. But by the time the iPad becomes a PC (one or two years?), I expect expect cheaper Android and WP7 slates/tablets to be on the market.

So, I don't think we are seeing Apple riding to 25% PC sales market share. I think the current numbers are just about as far as Apple can go.